The Networks of Hans Werner Henze's Drei Tentos (2025)

Torres v2 n1

Most (classical) guitar music comes from guitarist-composers. Yet according to guitarists who collaborate with composers, color research on this instrument is better achieved by those who do not play the instrument. Thus the guitar lags behind many instruments in regard to color research.

Brahms on guitar. Thoughts on an aesthetic adventure

© by Edition Margaux "sehr lange gerade am Eindruck immer noch größerer Simplizität gearbeitet" 28 hat. Selbst Volksliedhaftes, das pure Eingebung zu sein scheint, ist, wie sich zeigen lässt, stets bis ins Letzte durchgearbeitet, 29 dezidiert ein Kunstprodukt, das als solches gehört werden will. Natürlich ist all dies bei spontanem Hören nicht zwingend nachvollziehbar und für viele Arten von Musikgenuss gewiss entbehrlich. Eine ideale Transkription scheint mir persönlich aber gerade darin zu bestehen, dass sie von sich aus eine hörende Mittelposition anzubieten vermag, pendelnd zwischen einem "Ja, so könnte es sein", einem Vergessen-Lassen also, dass man es nicht mit einem Original zu tun hat, und dem Bewusst-Machen eines ‚Hörens zweiter Ordnung', das die Doppelbödigkeit, die der Sache nolens volens innewohnt, selbstbewusst herausstellt. Gerade das schwankende Wechseln zwischen solchen Hörhaltungen ist es, was ich an Transkriptionen so wertvoll finde. So geht es mir beispielsweise, wenn ich Mertz' exquisite Gitarren-Version des Ständchens aus dem Schwanengesang höre oder spiele, und ich leugne nicht, dass mir gerade sie, neben Mertz' weiteren Schubert-Liedern, für meine vorliegenden Bemühungen um Brahms ein entscheidendes Vorbild gewesen ist. Meine Ausgabe wagt sich auf eine Weise an Brahms, in der er meines Wissens bisher nicht bedacht wurde: daran, aus drei Liedern von Brahms, die ich dafür geeignet finde, gitarristische "Lieder ohne Worte" zu machen, bei denen man die Worte kennen kann, aber nicht muss, innerlich mitsingen kann, aber nicht muss. Dass dieses Wagnis mit vielen Schwierigkeiten einhergeht, ist mir bewusst. Vielleicht geht es aber auch mit Chancen einher. Brahms' Klaviersatz und zusätzlich die Gesangsstimme unmittelbar und verlustfrei auf ihren bescheidenen sechs Saiten vortragen, das kann die Gitarre nicht. Was ihr aber vielleicht gelingt, ist, diese kleine Auswahl mit ihren eigenen Mitteln zu betrachten, im Wortsinn zu reflektieren, und damit etwas Anderes zu gewinnen, das den originalen Klang nicht mit Ansage defizitär kopiert, sondern seinen in Kauf genommenen Verlust ansatzweise durch ein Neues aufwiegt. Mir als Bearbeiter und Autor dieser Zeilen bleibt nur zu hoffen, dass Brahms' Musik am Ende mit Hilfe von interessierten Interpret*innen sich sogar auf der Gitarre "hübsch und angemessen" verwirklichen möge.

The Solo Guitar Works of Sir Richard Rodney Bennett

2011

Office, The Simpsons, 30 Rock, Seinfeld, and Arrested Development for offering the comedic relief and hours of entertainment that helped me feel normal again after each writing session. I would finally like to thank my mother, Sheila, for teaching me the importance of hard work, the value of integrity, and to never give up on my dreams. v

Soundboard -William Walton: The Evolution of Five Bagatelles, Part 1

Soundboard -The Journal of Guitar Foundation of America, 2019

The distinguished British composer, William Walton wrote numerous beloved orchestral works including Façade, the cantata Belshazzar's Feast, the Viola Concerto and the First and Second Symphonies. His first work involving the guitar, the song cycle Anon. in Love, was composed for tenor Peter Pears and guitarist Julian Bream in 1960. He wrote his only solo guitar work in 1971, Five Bagatelles, which he dedicated to the composer Malcolm Arnold, and was premiered by Bream in the same year. Walton admitted that he had never thought of writing for the guitar, but was encouraged to do so by Julian Bream. This work was written hand-in-hand between Bream and Walton in Ischia, Italy, in which Bream even provided a chart which would explain what the guitar could do to assist Walton in his composing. There is also evidence to suggest Arnold might have helped Walton in composing this work. There have been very few articles written about William Walton’s Five Bagatelles, the best of which were written by Michael Donley and John Mills. In the present article, an analysis of Walton’s guitar writing will be carried out through study and comparison with Anon. in Love (1959), Capriccio Burlesco (1968), Scapino: A Comedy Overture (1940), and his two symphonies. Through correspondence with Michael Donley, the scholar who wrote in detail about this work in Classical Guitar Magazine back in 1990, and worked closely in person with Bream, the evolving nature of this composition, and some interesting facts are now unmasked. With the permission from Oxford University Press (O.U.P.), and the William Walton Museum and Trust, I am delighted to be able to reproduce selected pages of Arnold’s original manuscript. I am also sharing my revised arrangement of Bagatelle V, which is based on Varii Capricci (1976). Last but not least, other Walton materials I found in my research, such as a BBC Radio 3 recording from 1982 and an interview with Julian Bream explaining the collaboration, are available at my personal website, kennethkam.wordpress.com.

Soundboard -The Guitar Works of Malcolm Arnold

Soundboard -The Journal of Guitar Foundation of America, 2024

In the December 2019 and March 2020 Soundboard issues (vols. 45/4, 46/1), Kenneth Kam presented a comprehensive analysis of William Walton's Five Bagatelles for guitar. In this edition, he undertakes an exploration of British composer Malcolm Arnold's guitar works, which include Serenade, op.50, and Concerto, op. 67, both with orchestra, as well as two fantasies: one a didactic flute-guitar miniature, the other Arnold's Fantasy, op. 107, for solo guitar.

Leo Brouwer: figura incontornável da guitarra

2011

Este trabalho é uma perspectiva sobre a vida e a obra de um personagem carismático e actual do universo guitarrístico. O seu percurso, a sua estética e a apreciação de obras emblemáticas de distintos períodos (Estudios Sencillos, Danza Característica, Canticum, La Espiral Eterna, El Decameron Negro, Variations sur un thème de Django Reinhardt, Sonata) compõem esta dissertação sobre a multifacetada actividade de Leo Brouwer, guitarrista, compositor e director de orquestra.This work is an outlook on life and work of a charismatic character of the universe and current guitarist world. His journey, their aesthetics and appreciation of emblematic works of different periods (Estudios Sencillos, Danza Característica, Canticum, La Espiral Eterna, El Decameron Negro, Variations sur un thème de Django Reinhardt, Sonata) comprise this dissertation on the multifaceted activities of Leo Brouwer guitarist, composer and orchestra director

2023

Illustrations 1.1. Example of the Catalan cifra of the 'Tabla para saber cual dedo ha de tocar la cuerda y en qué traste' (Table to know which finger has to play in which string and fret), in Joan Carles Amat, Guitarra española de cinco órdenes (Gerona: Joseph Brò, 1761-1766), 16. Biblioteca Nacional de España, M.FOLL/422/11 (Reproduced by permission). 1.2. Example of Castilian cifra in Luis de Briceño, Método muy facilísimo para aprender a tañer la guitarra a lo español (Paris: Ballard, 1626), not paginated. Bibliothèque Nationale de France, RES VM8 U-1 (Reproduced by permission). 1.3. 'Canarios', in Gaspar Sanz, Instrucción de música sobre la guitarra española (Zaragoza: Diego Dormer, 1697), 8. Biblioteca Nacional de España, M/1884 (Reproduced by permission). 2.1. Excerpt from 'Fantesia 1. er tono de Monteyro', in M. M. 97, title page, fol. 1, recto. Reservados, Biblioteca Geral da Universidade de Coimbra (Reproduced by permission). 2.2. Several short pieces in O livro do Conde de Redondo, Biblioteca Nacional de Portugal (Reproduced by permission). 3.1. Four-course guitar as illustrated in Guillaume Morlaye, Le premier livre de chansons, gaillardes, pavannes, branfles, almandes, fantaisies (Paris, 1552), title page. Kantonsbibliothek Vadiana, St. Gallen, Sammlung der Ortsbürgergemeinde, VadSlg P 3050 (Reproduce by permission). 3.2. 'Alfabetto', in Girolamo Montesardo, Nuova inventione d'intavolatura per sonare li balletti sopra la chitarra spagnuola senza numeri (Florence: Christofano Marescotti, 1606), n.p. Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde in Wien, 1843/10 (Reproduced by permission). 3.3. Extract from 'Corrente', in Giovanni Paolo Foscarini, I quatro libri della chitarra spagnola (c1635), 19. Biblioteca Nacional de España, R/5669 (Reproduced by permission). 3.4. Extract from 'Chacona', in Francesco Corbetta, Varii scherzi di sonate per chitarra spagnola was published (Brussels, 1648), 28. Bibliothèque Nationale de France, VM7-6217 (Reproduced by permission).

Julian Bream: a man for all seasons

Revista Vortex, 2020

Julian Bream, the great dissident of Segovia's era

Aesthetic dissidence has been a motor in the history of creative movements. In the recent history of the Classical Guitar, the emergence of Julian Bream as the great other that defied Andres Segovia’s hegemony as the Grandmaster of the guitar, meant a serious divergence from the mainstream of the then perceived only one possible tradition. Through the programming of a series of pieces that lead towards his territory, I explore, in the way of extensive programe notes, how this music can depict an alternative praxis that enacts a different view of the guitar, its capabilities, its somehow neglected present and its probable future.

Werkverzeichnis vom Komponisten Juan María Solare [Buenos Aires / Bremen]

2019

Werkverzeichnis der Musikstücke vom Komponisten Juan María Solare (Buenos Aires, Argentinien, 1966), nach Besetzung sortiert. Stand: Dezember 2019. Gliederung: A) BÜHNENWERKE B) ORCHESTER C) KAMMERMUSIK D) SOLOINSTRUMENT D-1) Klavier Solo (außer 4-händig: siehe "Kammermusik") D-2) andere Instrumente Solo D-3) didaktische Werke für Klavier Solo E) MIT GESANG / STIMME F) CHOR G) MIT IMPROVISATORISCHEN ELEMENTEN * ALEATORIK * GRAPHISCH H) KONZEPTUELLE WERKE I) ELEKTRONISCHE / ELEKTROAKUSTISCHE MUSIK & GEMISCHT